How to Create Your Own Font

Either you are completely done with stock fonts available on your Mac or PC, or you are that artistic type who wants everything to be beautifully customized. In both cases, this short, quick tutorial will teach you how to make your own font.

Things you need:

Paper

Pencil

Artistic brain (or any brain will do)

Sharp pen to outline

Computer

Vector software such as Adobe Illustrator

Scanner or camera or smartphone with camera

Step 1

Start brainstorming your design or font on a piece of paper. Sketch out all possible strokes and shapes.

After you have brainstormed ideas, it's time to put down the best ones with a pen or a marker. Outline the fonts or shapes you made. Make sure to draw punctuations as well.

You can skip this step (and the beginning of Step 2) if you are tech guy or a hardcore designer who has a stylus or a graphic tablet. In that case, you can directly draw on your computer.

Step 2

Scan your sketch or take a photo of the sketch right from above. Make sure to scan in the minimum 200dpi (dot per inch) setting. After scanning, clean up the haze or any areas that you don't want, either in Photoshop or whichever editing software you feel comfortable with.

Step 3

Now put your cleaned scanned images into a vector software. You can also use a font editor directly, but having your drawings in vector will give you a much cleaner result. I would recommend using Adobe Illustrator to convert to vectors.

Click image trace in order to trace out your sketches and then click expand to make it vector. After going through this step, go onto any font-editing software website such as:

All of the above are equally good, and it's up to you to decide which one works best for you.

TIP: Try using Kerning in your typeface, since it gives the entire font a nice feel and depth to it, and makes it unique and beautiful to look at.

That's pretty much it. After exporting your typeface, you can install it on your computer, use them in your websites, or sell them online.

If you are having difficulty getting ideas during your brainstorming stage, you should try visiting dafont.com, as the site allows you to download various custom fonts. This way, you can learn how the kerning, spacing, and strokes on each font are made. Happy font designing!

Initially, we were known as the Noniproductions, but soon that name became very limited and restrictive so we decided to switch to MIS or Misty Interactive Studios.Inc
In 2010 MIS got it’s very first client, a logo design and branding project.
In 2012 we designed two of our own products one helping students with generating thesis using their iOS devices, and second a system for hair salons. Both...